Life Is But A Dream?
by middleagecrazy
Summary: My entry in the July 11 ficathon. Is Gibbs awake or asleep? Twilight spoiler, for any who haven't seen it.


**Life Is But... A Dream?**

Author: middleagecrazy  
Rating: M  
Spoilers: Twilight  
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, nor do I have any right to be writing about them. Giving myself forty lashes with a wet noodle in penance for my transgression.

* * *

_"I just want to feel safe in my own skin  
I just want to be happy again  
I just want to feel deep in my own world  
but I'm so lonely I don't even want to be with myself anymore" (Dido)  
_

He has no idea where he is.

Oh, sure, he knows the surroundings: wraparound desk, computers, monitors, printers, a phone with far more buttons than was necessary, and the dregs of a cup of coffee long turned cold.

And Kate. In his lap. Kissing him as if she needed his breath to stay alive.

Oh, no. This is not the office he knows, the workspace that is his second home. This is one of those dreams where you wake up shaking your head, vowing never again to eat cold anchovy pizza after midnight. If this weren't a dream, the squadroom would be bustling with activity and sunlight would be streaming through the picture window. If this weren't a dream, Kate would be sitting over _there_ focused on some twenty-page file he'd given her to memorize fifteen minutes ago.

Instead, the place is silent, it's black as pitch outside, and she's focused on him. She feels like she's trying to crawl inside his skin and her hands seem intent on ripping the damn shirt from his back and why can't he just WAKE UP?

Well, as long as it's only a dream…

He weaves his fingers through her chestnut hair and loose strands caress his ears. Her soft moan joins the sensual harmony. He hears it in the pit of his stomach. More and more of his body responds to her invasion of his sleep-deprived mind, and it occurs to him that his dreams rarely smell of freesia and taste of red wine vinaigrette.

This is a dream, right?

_Of course it is_, smirks the part of him that threatens to explode from his pants.

Her fingertips dance on the back of his neck, sending shock waves down his spine. It's been five minutes since she started kissing him and he wonders why neither of them have suffocated yet. A kiss can't go on forever, can it?

_Of course it can_, nods the part of him that wakes up before he does every morning.

Unsure if dying in a dream is fatal in real life, Jethro very reluctantly pulls Kate's lips from his own. His sharp intake of air is mirrored by her oh-so-contented sigh. But before she can move to put her mouth on some other part of him, he stiff-arms her shoulders and asks, "What the hell are you doing?"

Of course he does. Really.

Okay, so he meant to ask that question… Surprisingly, though, what he actually hears himself asking is, "Why don't you let me take this off?" as he grabs the back of both his polo and tee and pulls them over his head.

"That's more like it," purrs Kate, and the soft curls of hair on his chest become her personal playground. He watches the choreography of palms and nails and lips and teeth, the intricate dance of pure lust. Moments later, the satisfaction of being a passive audience begins to wane, and his eyes are drawn to the inviting curtain of her cream silk blouse.

Don't dreams usually have white fluffy cloudlike edges? Or invoke memories of childhood? There's nothing out of focus here. The smooth pearl buttons that beckon him are perfectly formed, as is the aroma of Obsession that rises from her flesh.

He pops the bottommost button, then a second and a third. The firm skin of her bared midriff is surprisingly soft. As he brushes both thumbs along its length, it does an odd little dance.

Two more buttons, and the swell of her breast is visible beneath its cocoon of lace – and a front-clasping cocoon at that. Now it's your turn to gasp, Katie-my-girl. He nibbles at the last button, severing the threads with his teeth.

He pulls the blouse down below her shoulders, but no farther – trapping her arms at her sides. Taking a slim wrist in each of his hands and drawing them slowly behind her back, he waits for her reaction. He doesn't have to wait long. At first, she struggles to free herself from the prison of her blouse, but as her wrists meet and are held in one of his, her movements still. He smiles as he watches her widened eyes reveal her thoughts.

"Gibbs?"

"Hm?" he murmurs, his lips suddenly finding the hollow at the base of her throat irresistible.

"I can't move my hands."

He grins as she tugs once again against his grasp. "That was the general idea, Kate."

He expects her to resist. To struggle. To beg him for release. To demand that he stop. And he would reluctantly end their little game, were she to ask. He would turn her loose and later satisfy himself the old-fashioned way, with his old friend Rosie and her famous five sisters.

"Gibbs," she repeats in a voice laden with longing.

"Yes, Kate?"

"You can't move your hand either."

At first, he doesn't get it. But he follows her gaze downward and notices that only his right hand is engaged in idly toying with a very erect nipple.

"How do you suppose we overcome this obstacle?" Her blank, wide-eyed stare gives him neither answer nor consent, so he resorts to bluntness. "Do you want me to let you go?"

Her response bursts forth as if escaping a house on fire. "No! I want this…don't stop now… Damn, Gibbs! How can I say this?"

He finds a flustered Kate most adorable. But keeping this woman off-balance and on her toes could prove to be quite a task. Suddenly, her lower lip retreats behind the wall of her teeth.

_Spit it out, Kate. _

Tell me what you want.

Because in thirty seconds, I'm going to let you go and wake myself up from this Hell-blasted dream. I'm going to find a more peaceful place to sleep. A place where there are no raven-haired women in silk blouses with pearl buttons thrusting Obsession-perfumed breasts in my face. A place where I don't have to wonder exactly how your teeth taste. A place where you would demand that I let you go. Tell me...

"Gibbs," she says again in that way that makes him want to devour her in one bite. "Hold me... I'm gone…" He hears only whispered nonsense, and then she's biting his ear and sucking fiercely on the lobe.

_Twenty seconds.  
_  
He feels her breath's warm breeze before her words confirm his suspicions. "I'll always be here…"

He never makes it to ten.

With a deep gasping breath, he sits bolt-upright in bed, sweat beading and dripping down his face. He can still smell her, taste her, feel her inside his soul. He looks at his trembling hands – the hands that clasped her body to his in desperation and yearning. His traitorous mind never stops imagining that this time, he'll hold her. She'll stay.

But he wakes, knowing he'll never really hold her, no matter how many times he tries to in that misbegotten dream.

He knows that eventually the dream will fade. He'll be able to close his eyes once more and sleep through the night, untroubled by memories and ghosts. But on that day, he'll lose Kate forever.

So he sleeps, and he dreams, and she lives.


End file.
